


Pink, Blue, and Gold

by heartsdesire456



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Bucky Barnes Feels, Flashbacks, Love, M/M, Mind Control Aftermath & Recovery, Past Brainwashing, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Recovered Memories
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-27
Updated: 2015-02-27
Packaged: 2018-03-15 10:34:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3443951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heartsdesire456/pseuds/heartsdesire456
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Sometimes the Soldier had flashes. Flashes of some sort of memory. There was a flash of gold, but it wasn't gold. It was yellow. Strands of yellow that shined gold in the light. Like straw or hay. Sometimes there was pink, a soft, velvety pink. A lot of the times there was a bright blue like the sky. It was always just flashes, but it came with the oddest warmth and the sound of a music.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pink, Blue, and Gold

**Author's Note:**

> This came out of NOWHERE last night. So I just wrote it, lol. I finished it off this afternoon and now I'm posting it. HOPEFULLY, you'll like it even if it's just a little short one-shot.
> 
> Mostly this all comes from my love of Bucky Barnes and the way I watched CA:TWS the other night again and GUH EVERYTHING SAID WITH JUST TINY GLANCES! He barely speaks, but you SEE him remembering things and GAHHHHH dsflksjdflksfd Bucky Feels.
> 
> Also the AoS stuff is VERY SMALL! You don't need any knowledge of watching AoS to follow. At all. Just know they have a plane on AoS, basically.

Sometimes he remembered.

There were flashes. Usually of lights or sounds. Screams and explosions. Smells like gunpowder and blood. The grit of dirt under his hands, or the cold handle of a knife. Never in detail, just little memories that crept in. The sort of things he knew. 

But sometimes it was different. Sometimes there was warmth, something that he had never really felt. Not heat, like the sun beating down on him as he laid in wait in the desert, but _warmth_. And it was always paired with the sound of music. The sound of jazz playing softly with the warmth. There was a flash of gold, but it wasn’t gold. It was yellow. Strands of yellow that shined gold in the light. Like straw or hay. Sometimes there was pink, a soft, velvety pink. A lot of the times there was a bright blue like the sky. It was always just flashes, but it came with the oddest warmth and the sound of a music.

The Soldier had no use for the flashes of warmth or gold or music or pink or blue. They were anomalies. He wasn’t warm. He was cold. He was hard. He was swift, silent, and deadly. He had missions, and when those missions were done, he got new ones. They gave him what he needed. He didn’t need these flashes. He disregarded them for the most part.

… except sometimes, when he slept, they weren’t just flashes.

_There was a slender hand in his, and the skin under his fingertips was silky soft and warm. There was the feeling of soft hair against his cheek, and a small, slender body pressed against his front. He was humming as he tried guiding the body in his arms in the same motions._

_Dancing. It was dancing._

_“C’mon, it’s not that hard,” his voice urged, though it was a very different tone than he knew his voice to be. “Just follow me.” He slid his right hand down the waist under his hand until it rested on a hip. He could feel his lips curving into a smile as he snuck his fingers under the shirt and stroked his thumb along the ridge of a bony hip. “Just move with my body. Feel it.” There was an amused snort somewhere around his neck, but he just turned his head and pressed his smile against the soft, sweet-smelling hair that was touching him. “Love you like this.”_

_There was an offended little sound and he smiled again. “Alright, alright, I love you always.” He felt that warmth, the glowing one inside of him. It felt right this time. “I’ll love you even if you don’t learn to dance. Cause I’m with you ‘till the end of the line.” He turned his head and rested his cheek against the top of the person’s head, closing his eyes._

_He was warm. And it felt good. He wished he just knew what that meant._

He tried to understand them, sometimes. But he only ever mentioned it once. The one time he asked who the person he dreamed about dancing with, they stopped letting him sleep. He hated when the time came to be put away. The cold was painful. He never mentioned it again after the first time in hopes he would be able to sleep instead of be put away. 

It didn’t work.

~

The Soldier was … confused.

He didn’t get confused.

Confused wasn’t possible. But he was. He was very confused. The man with the shield. He felt something when he looked at him. It was a weird feeling in the pit of his stomach. Like he was forgetting something important. And the man had called him a word. A name.

Bucky.

He didn’t know what ‘Bucky’ was. Or who, rather. Why did the man look at him that way? And why had he wanted to stop trying to kill him? The Soldier never felt guilt. Or remorse. But the man made him hesitate. The word he called him made him hesitate. He knew it.

He knew _him_.

He just didn’t understand why. 

Just before the wipe began, before the pain started, he had a sudden memory of gold and blue and long, pretty eyelashes.

And then the pain started.

~

The Soldier was confused. And conflicted. He didn’t know what was wrong with him. The man with the cowl on his head, he was supposed to kill him. He _had_ to kill him. He had orders. They were to kill that man. That was his mission.

But he didn’t _want_ to. 

He wasn’t sure why, but he didn’t want to and it was terrifying. He was afraid. Fear wasn’t in his programming, but he felt it. The fear only got worse when the man stopped fighting. He was supposed to fight. Everybody fought back. He was going to kill him, who didn’t fight for their life? It threw him off. He didn’t _understand_.

“You’re my friend.”

The man was bleeding from various wounds. Abrasions, gunshots, stab wounds… he was bleeding and there was fire and debris, and yet he stopped fighting. He wasn’t fighting. The Soldier didn’t understand, because he _was not_ anybody’s friend. He was an asset.

Mind made up to end the confusion and kill the man once and for all, he attacked, throwing the man down and getting on top of him. “You’re my mission.” He began hitting the man with his enhanced arm. Over and over. And over. Intent to bash his head in. 

And every punch felt _wrong_. It hurt. Something in him that he didn’t understand was screaming at him to stop. With every punch, his insides felt like they were being ripped apart. It was like being wiped, but nothing was going away. He hated it. He hated this feeling. He hated _feeling_.

“You’re.”

He wanted to stop.

“My.”

Every part of him was fighting to keep punching. 

“MISSION!”

He had to finish his mission but… but he couldn’t.

He stopped, hand poised, trying fruitlessly to force himself to throw another punch, but he _couldn’t_. He was scared, and confused, and he wanted to make it all stop. He wanted to end the mission. He wanted this mission to be wiped because, for once, he wanted to stop this feeling in his insides. He didn’t want it. He didn’t want any of it.

And then the man spoke. His eye was swollen shut already. He couldn’t even open it. His mouth was bloody and there were splits in his lips in multiple places. Speaking had to hurt. Everything about him had to hurt. He was broken and shot and stabbed and bleeding. And yet he was still talking. 

“Then finish it,” the man said. It confused him even more. Why was this man submitting? Why didn’t he fight? They were supposed to fight. Everything was wrong about this. It hurt. And it was confusing. And the man wasn’t fighting. It was like everything he knew was upside down, the mission parameters wiped off the board, and he didn’t know what to do. He wanted it to all just _stop_.

“Cause I’m with you ‘til the end of the line.”

He felt like he’d been doused in ice water. He knew those words. He knew it. He knew without a shadow of a doubt he had spoken them before. He remembered how they tasted coming from his lips. He remembered the form his lips took when those words rolled off his tongue. He could remember how they felt spoken into pale, sweaty skin beneath his mouth in the middle of a passionate embrace. He knew he had said those very same words a hundred times before, and he was overwhelmed by flashes of pink and gold and blue and the feeling of silky skin under his fingertips – ten fingertips, not five metal ones – and suddenly he knew it.

There was a name. Those flashes and those words belonged to a name. His lips started to form the name he knew with every fiber of his being, but before he could speak it, the ship that had been breaking apart around them broke off and in a crash, the beam they were on snapped. His metal hand was fast enough he could grab something to hang on, but when he looked back to see what happened to the man, he saw him falling.

It was the worst feeling ever. His heart was in his throat. His lungs were crushed like something had reached inside him and grabbed them. Panic. It was panic. As he watched the man fall, everything in him was screaming out to save him, even if there was nothing to be done. 

His mission was complete, and it was the worst feeling he had ever felt before.

As he watched the man hit the water’s surface with a jarring ‘smack’, the panic finally forced the name lodged in his throat to wrench free and follow him.

“STEEEEEVE!”

He didn’t think twice about letting go to follow the man down into the water.

Because the man was _Steve_.

~

It was him. 

He was Bucky.

The sold- _Bucky_ looked at the man on the wall and it was him. His face. And he was with Steve. In all of the photos and the video he was with Steve.

He’d always been with Steve. He knew that now. He saw the photo of Steve Rogers before he became Captain America and he realized what the music and warmth and flashes were. That one dream he had. The music was from the radio his parents had given them when they got a better one. It was old and crackly and too quiet, but it was music. The gold was Steve’s hair. It was always too-long because he didn’t have time to cut it for Steve and Steve hated spending money on a barber. It fell in his eyes all the time, but Bucky just used the excuse to push it back and stroke a finger down Steve’s cheek whenever they were alone. The pink was his lips. Even with all his health problems, as pale as he was, his lips were full and pink and soft and Bucky got distracted when he talked because he just wanted to kiss them every time they caught his eyes. The blue was Steve’s eyes. So big, and blue, and framed in the longest lashes Bucky had ever seen. 

The warmth though, that was something that Bucky was still reeling from. It wasn’t one thing. It was happiness. And comfort. And joy. And contentedness. But most of all it was love. 

Bucky had been _in love_.

It was hard to imagine that Bucky – the Soldier – had ever been in love. Or felt any sort of love, nonetheless the overwhelming love he’d felt for Steve. But he remembered it. He knew what it was. He remembered so much more than just dancing with Steve. He remembered the taste of Steve’s skin, and the way he turned red when he was angry about something. He remembered how his hands felt against Steve’s waist and how Steve had fit just right tucked under his arm when they walked side by side. He remembered Steve’s voice saying his name, and Steve’s shy smile when he woke up and found Bucky had been watching him sleep.

He also remembered Steve big. He didn’t remember everything by any stretch of the imagination. He couldn’t remember a lot of his time in the military. He couldn’t remember much of the war. He remembered Steve being big though. He remembered being enraged when he realized what had happened and what Steve had done. He had wanted to find whoever worked on the project and wring their necks – not because Steve was big and strong and healthy, he loved knowing Steve was finally healthy – but because they had talked Steve into something so dangerous. Steve could’ve died in a machine in a basement lab and Bucky would’ve never known what happened. He’d have found out weeks later that Steve was dead in a letter from his mother. 

He remembered after it was all said and done, after Steve had dragged a drunken and jealous Bucky back to the SSR headquarters from the bar where Steve rounded up the men who would become their teammates, Steve had taken Bucky back to his room, only for Bucky to grab him by the collar and drag him inside. Bucky’s bunkmate was Morita and since he was back at the bar still, Bucky hadn’t let Steve get out a complaint before shoving him against the door and kissing him within an inch of his life. Being taller and bigger hadn’t’ changed Bucky’s feelings for Steve, and even if Steve admitted later that night that he’d feared Bucky wouldn’t want him anymore, Bucky could remember so clearly that he’d been so grateful Steve was alive and there with him that he didn’t even let Steve talk about it with him until days later when he’d had time to deal with the changes.

He’d been far more pissed at Steve’s crush on Peggy Carter than he was Steve looking different. They’d sort of stopped talking when he saw how nervous Steve got around her. He could remember wondering if he should ask Steve what the hell he and Peggy Carter got up to while Bucky was gone, because it had been two years and he hadn’t really ever thought Steve would start stepping out on him, but the way they looked at each other bugged him.

But he could remember that they talked about it and Steve admitted that, yes, he had a crush on her, but that nothing happened or would happen, and Bucky had been big enough to not hold that against Steve. Especially not when every time Steve looked at him to tell him something, Bucky could see the same love in Steve’s eyes he’d always seen before.

It was insane.

He was standing in front of a video of him and Steve laughing together… but that’s all he remembered. Him and Steve. A little bit about his family. Some of the stuff from the war that involved him and Steve. But _just_ Steve. He remembered parts of himself that involved Steve. Sure, that was most of his life – at least he was pretty sure it was – but he couldn’t remember his favorite food even if he could remember how much Steve loved chocolate. Everything he knew about himself was something that involved Steve.

But the important part – and the most painful – was that he _knew_ Steve.

~

Bucky had wanted to get rid of some of the bastards that had turned him into the Soldier before facing Steve. He knew Steve was trying to find him, and he wanted to see him so bad it hurt like something was wedged behind his ribcage. But he had stuff he had to do first. So he spent a solid month keeping one step ahead of Steve all the time. By the time Steve got where he had been, all he found was bodies.

Steve was smart though. Bucky knew he’d always been smart, but when Steve caught up with him before he even made his hit on the Hydra soldiers holed up in a warehouse outside of Bucharest, he wasn’t prepared for being the one up in his position on a roof across the lot watching down the scope as Steve and his pal busted in on the base full of Hydra soldiers.

Steve and his friend were good, but they still were no match for fifteen armed men.

Bucky managed to slink in, silent as ever, and start helping out in the shadowy edges of the warehouse so as not to draw attention to himself. He took out several men without Steve or his friend ever noticing, but when he heard Steve’s friend shout out, “Cap!” in a panicked tone and looked through a gap between boxes to see Steve clutching his chest and falling to his knees, all thoughts of secrecy flew out the window. 

He felt more like the Soldier than he had in months as he punched a whole row of boxes out of the way in a spectacular flurry of splintered planks flying and pulled his sidearm, stalking out into the middle of the warehouse with nothing running through his mind but ‘Protect Steve’. Within seconds, he had killed four men with single gunshots to the head and, when they got too close for him to spin and aim, he dropped the gun and just started snatching men’s knives from their own vests and stabbing them in the throat with them. 

When everybody was dead, he rushed over to Steve and shoved his friend out of the way with a gritted out, “Move.” He grabbed Steve by the shoulders, leaning over him. “Steve?!” he asked quickly, running a hand down his chest to find the wound. Steve was coughing and wheezing in a way he shouldn’t be and it scared Bucky to death.

Steve’s eyes widened as he looked up at Bucky. “B-Buck-“ He tried to get out Bucky’s name but Bucky just slapped a hand over his mouth.

“Shut it, Punk, you need that air to keep living, don’t waste it talking,” he ordered, then ripped Steve’s shirt apart. The wound was bleeding pretty fast, but it was on the right side near his collarbone. The source of what Bucky assumed was Steve’s choking and couching was the ugly bruise the shape of a foot that was forming on Steve’s chest near his armpit. He felt gently and Steve gasped just as Bucky felt the grinding of bone shifting. “Aw fuck, Steve, you dumbass, this is gonna hurt like hell,” he said, ripping part of his own shirt off that wasn’t covered in filth and blood to wad up and press to the bullet wound. Steve cried out in pain, but Bucky just pressed harder, even though Steve’s gritted teeth and the look in his eyes was enough to make Bucky want to cry. “It’s gonna be okay, Stevie.” He looked at the other guy – Wilson – and nodded to Steve’s pocket. “Call his friend.”

“Wha- Man that the hell-“

Bucky let his eyes grow colder. “I know you know what I mean. Call. His. Friend.” He looked back down at Steve, who was gripping Bucky’s pants with one hand, the other clutching at his own chest. “It will take a lot longer for you to bleed out from that wound than it will for somebody to get us an evac out of here. You fuckin’ dumbass. You couldn’t just do like usual and catch up when I’m done-“

“I told you he knew!” Wilson argued at Steve, who was still staring at Bucky like he couldn’t believe his eyes. “You said it was coincidence, but I SAID he knew we were after him!”

Bucky rolled his eyes. “Call his goddamn friend, NOW!” he snarled, scaring the guy into stumbling back away from Steve. “Steve can barely breathe and he’s in some serious pain, and the faster we get help the faster that he can stop hurting, so do it now or I’ll fuckin’ make you do it,” he threatened darkly. When he grabbed Steve’s phone and turned away to call, Bucky turned his attention back to Steve, who was still looking at him with those big blue eyes full of hope and fear of that hope. He just swallowed hard, trying not to let out the emotions overwhelming him. “You’re gonna be okay, Punk. Just try not to think about it hurting and it’ll be over soon enough. I promise.”

The tiny smile Steve managed through the pain was so much more than Bucky could handle and he knew that all he’d tried to hide was breaking through in his eyes for Steve to see.

~

Bucky was in for a hell of a surprise when their ride ended up being a huge black jet with SHIELD logos on it. Apparently, so was Wilson until the ramp lowered and the redheaded woman from the bridge walked down to greet them. Bucky stayed with Steve while two people with a stretcher ran down to get Steve and they all went onto the plane. It was only when Steve was taken into what looked like a makeshift clinic set up on short notice that the redhead tried to stop Bucky from following them. 

“No you don’t, you back off and let them help h-“ Bucky cut her off, grabbing her by the throat and squeezing just tight enough to shut her up. She went immediately still instead of struggle, which surprised him. Even the best trained soldiers struggled often. 

“Whoa, hey no!” Wilson rushed over to shove aside the guns that had been drawn on Bucky the instant he grabbed her by the throat. “Natasha, you don’t wanna try and make him leave Steve.” He put a hand on Bucky’s shoulder, taking it off when Bucky whipped around to glare at him. “Look, man, if you hurt her they won’t let you in with Steve at all, you hear me?”

Bucky reluctantly relaxed his grip and let her go. She simply stepped back a pace, but otherwise didn’t react at all. She didn’t even reach up to rub her neck. Bucky recognized something in that behavior and, on a whim, tested it out. “Красная комната?” She raised a surprised eyebrow at him and he nodded. “Hydra sold me to the KGB at some point.”

“Everything okay, Natasha?” They all looked up at the voice above them on the walkway above the bay they were standing in. Bucky didn’t recognize the man that started down the spiral staircase, but the man clearly was on his guard. “We were surprised when Natasha informed us you were the one who called us.”

Bucky glanced back into the room, where Steve was unconscious and being worked on. “Let me in and we won’t have any problems.”

“It really would be best if you debrief with us-“

Natasha shook her head. “Coulson, you don’t wanna do that. Trust me. Let him go with Steve.” Her tone was serious enough that, apparently, the Coulson guy bought it. 

Once Bucky got to go into the room and sat off to the side and watch them patch Steve up, he spent the whole time focusing on Steve and those near him, making sure none of them were going to hurt him the second Bucky blinked.

~

Bucky hadn’t moved from the chair he’d been given five hours ago. Steve was already recovering well, his bones knitting themselves together, but he was also still sleeping. He was startled out of his staring (though he didn’t show it) by the door sliding open. He looked to the right and there was a young man with a bundle in his arms. “Erm, I thought you might want some clothes,” the man started with. He walked closer and sat them on the bed beside Steve’s leg. “You can go get showered and changed if you want.”

Bucky itched from all the dried blood, but he didn’t want to leave Steve. What if it was a trick? “I’m not leaving him.”

The young man shook his head. “No- no, you can-“ He made a frustrated sound and gestured to the side. “In the corner. It’s meant for if you get chem- um – things. On your clothes.” Bucky saw a small door in the corner. It was glass and clear, so that whoever was in the small cubicle could be seen from in the lab. “It’s decontamination, so it’s cold, but you don’t have to go anywhere.”

Bucky looked at the man and tilted his head. He didn’t seem like a threat. “Who are you?”

“I- I’m- um, not important. Just trying to help out-“

“So you don’t have a name?” Bucky asked skeptically and the guy blushed some.

“You can call me Fitz,” he said awkwardly.

Bucky stood up and noticed the Fitz flinched back like he’d been hit just by Bucky moving. He was very jumpy, even if he didn’t look afraid visibly. “So did you draw the short straw?” he asked, stripping off his clothes and leaving them on the floor before walking to the small shower in the corner. He looked back at Steve to be sure the Fitz kid wasn’t going to go near him, but he was just standing in the middle of the room looking everywhere but at Bucky, cheeks flaming. “What? Never seen a naked guy before?” Bucky asked, rolling his eyes as he stepped into the small decontamination shower and pulled the door shut. When he flipped the switch, the kid wasn’t lying, the water was cold, but as he watched rivulets of rusty brown water pour down the drain, he felt like it was worth it to rinse at least the top layer of blood and grime and dirt off of him.

He looked out the door again. “Like I said, did you lose a bet?”

Fitz shook his head. “No. I volunteered. The techs they were too scared to come near you.”

Bucky raised an eyebrow. “And you’re not?”

Fitz shrugged, looking down at the floor. “I’m not- I’m- my hands-“ He blew out a frustrated breath, waving his left hand. “I’m expendable,” he said in a sardonic tone.

Bucky had noticed that his left hand trembled and he’d caught him tripping over his words. He was a small guy. Short, skinny, twitchy. Didn’t seem like a fighter, that’s for sure. He looked like he’d fall apart if a strong breeze caught him. But something in Bucky soured at the thought of being fragile equaling expendable. He looked back at Steve and knew exactly why he thought that. He finished rinsing the worst of the blood and dirt caked in his hair and on his skin away and then simply walked out of the shower after turning off the water. He took the towel Fitz scrambled to hand to him and caught his wrist as he did so.

Fitz froze, eyes wide, but he didn’t cry out or draw back, just like Bucky expected. He managed what he figured was the approximation of a smile before letting him go. “Being damaged doesn’t make you expendable.”

Fitz shrugged, looking away. “I- I’m not- I can’t do things. I used to but now I- I’m just-“ He grimaced. “Useless enough.”

Bucky pulled on the clothes he’d been left and looked at him again. “You don’t even seem that afraid. How expendable are you if you’re brave enough to come in here and the others aren’t?”

“Oh I’m definitely afraid,” Fitz said immediately. “I’m- I’m bloody terrified. I’m unarmed and even if I had a gun, I can’t aim well anymore. But- but you- you’re not a- a prisoner. If nobody else was going to offer you a chance to clean up, I might as well.”

Bucky huffed softly in amusement as he went back to his chair and sat beside Steve, looking him over to make sure he really was still sleeping. “You don’t sound expendable to me. Sounds like somebody I used to know,” he said softly, looking at Steve’s face. 

He kept staring at Steve long after he heard the door open and shut and Fitz leave.

~

Wilson and Natasha came few times, but mostly nobody tried to make Bucky leave Steve’s side. It wasn’t until the next morning (or what he assumed was morning) that Steve stirred slowly and, in moments, he slowly blinked his eyes open. Bucky held his breath, sitting still like a statue, until Steve turned his head with a confused little line between his eyes until he spotted Bucky. He blinked a few times and then gasped.

“Bucky?” he asked, voice rough. He coughed and Bucky moved to grab the bottle of water that Fitz had left him. He opened it and handed it to Steve, who weakly reached up to grab it and took a long drink. He handed him back the bottle and Bucky put it on the floor again. Steve looked at him, still drowsy clearly. “Buck?” he asked softly, and Bucky’s heart twisted as he saw the thinly veiled hope in Steve’s eyes.

Bucky swallowed hard, trying to clear the lump in his throat as he nodded minutely. “You okay, Steve?” he asked hoarsely.

Steve’s eyes brightened some, and his lips ( _pink_ , his brain supplied) twisted into a smile. “Bucky?”

Bucky nodded again. “‘M here, Stevie. You’re okay,” he promised. Much to his horror, Steve made a tight sound and his eyes ( _blue_ ) started to fill with tears. “No, Steve-“

“ _Bucky_ ,” he choked out in a strangled tone. He reached out for Bucky’s hand, and Bucky didn’t try to pull away when Steve curled his left hand around Bucky’s right. “Oh God, Bucky, you- you know me.”

Bucky laughed weakly, because it was _so_ true. “You have no idea, Pal,” he muttered and Steve let out a wet laugh, tears breaking free of those long eyelashes Bucky remembered so well. Bucky thoughtlessly reached up to wipe the tears away from his cheek, only to stop, throat closing when his metal thumb touched Steve’s cheek. He snatched his hand away fast, but Steve made a sound of discontent.

“Don’t,” he said softly. He reached out and grabbed Bucky’s metal wrist. Bucky started breathing fast but Steve shook his head. “You won’t hurt me,” he said, pulling Bucky’s hand back to his face.

Bucky shook his head. “You don’t know-“

“Oh yes I do,” Steve said gently. “You forget, I see the aftermath every time you get a base before we do.” He leaned his cheek against the cold metal and Bucky wanted to make him stop, but Steve just smiled. “You won’t hurt me. I remember what happened when I got shot.”

Bucky snorted. “Of course I won’t fuckin’ hurt you, dumbass.” He looked at his hand again. “I just- I don’t-“

“Shut it, Jerk,” Steve said tiredly and Bucky laughed softly, startling himself. He couldn’t remember laughing. Not in a long time. Steve closed his eyes and leaned against his metal hand. “Please be real, Bucky,” he whispered and Bucky leaned forward, pressing his lips to Steve’s forehead.

“‘M right here, Punk. Won’t go anywhere. I promise.”

When he rested his cheek against Steve’s head, all he saw was gold.


End file.
